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Thursday, July 17, 2014

Grow your own vegies and be a superhero

DIY scarecrows protect the local veg.

We’re on the home-stretch
of our overseas mission and SAT has relocated to the quaint English countryside
village of Winscombe, just South of Bristol.

It’s only a few miles to
Cheddar Gorge, home of the original Cheddar Cheese, and close to Glastonbury,
famous for the Glastonbury festival where this year Dolly Parton (bless her) almost adopted
a lost lurcher (now reunited with the owners – for details click here).

One of the most charming
things about the place is that everyone grows their own vegies, mostly on
little allotments. For a few pounds a year you can lease a patch on a site and
grow your own fruit, vegies, herbs and flowers. I’ve never seen such a variety
of fantastic looking produce.

Celery growing in paper bags - apparently the best way to keep it on the straight and narrow. Those wayward vagies...

There are even allotmentcompetitions and allotment societies you can join. Its environmentally friendly,
its economically sensible and its just a great idea. My colleague Siobhan took
a group of us on a tour of her allotment where she grows beans, strawberries,
artichokes, cucumbers and even a champion giant pumpkin. The guinea pigs would
have had a field day! We even picked some fresh camomile for a cup of tea.

Camomile flowers.

The big news, of course,
is that next week is SUPERHERO week. You might think your ordinary life is
really nothing special, but the Bear Cottage annual fundraiser offers an
opportunity to break out and be a superhero for a very good cause. SAT will naturally
be participating. We've had a chat with Bear Cottage about their on-site lab (labrador, anyway) and we've been doing our own superdeeds in the lead-up to superhero week. For more info on that, click here.

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